In his newest column,
he appears to have hit upon the solution: Lie like a dog about
Democrats, pretend that the raging nativism in the Republican Party
doesn't exist, and in general invert reality by introducing a new viral
right-wing Planet Bizarro meme -- to wit, that Democrats are the reason comprehensive immigration reform will run aground in the coming sessions of Congress.

That's right: In Navarrette's up-is-down recasting of the immigration
universe, the Republican hysterics -- led by Rush Limbaugh and the
Minuteman faction, who nowadays fancy themselves the Tea Party -- who
were responsible for shooting down the 2007 immigration-reform bill,
having declared it "dead on arrival" at the moment of its introduction -- have been airbrushed entirely out of the picture.

But in order to paint a picture of venal Democrats secretly conspiring to keep Latinos in thrall by only pretending to support comprehensive immigration reform, Navarette has to lie. A lot. And indeed he does:

When the media talk about the imminent arrival of
comprehensive-immigration reform, this is what is generally assumed:
Supposedly, the tuneup to our immigration system that President George
W. Bush first talked about at the White House with Mexican President
Vicente Fox in September 2001 is a done deal. We’re told: Democrats want
it, and Republicans need it.

The assessment is half right. The Republicans need it. But the
Democrats don’t really want it. They’ve never really wanted it. They
only say they want it to trick Latinos and immigration-reform advocates
into voting for them again and again.

Which is why reform probably won’t happen. We’ll have a debate but no solution will emerge from it.

So why don’t Democrats want comprehensive-immigration reform? For the
same five reasons that Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid teamed up in
2006 and 2007 with the nativist wing of the Republican Party to kill
bipartisan bills and, in 2010, helped scuttle the DREAM Act — a
mini-legalization program for college students and military.

This is just blatantly, egregiously false -- and the nakedness of
these assertions is a clear signal that Navarrette is not simply
mistaken on the facts, but actively knows they are false and is lying.

Navarrette tells a number of other little lies too, including
claiming that labor "opposes any stab at immigration reform that
includes mention of guest workers" (false: unions are fine with
guest-worker programs that ensure normal constitutional rights,
guaranteed under the 14th Amendment, for such workers, including labor
and civil rights) and that Democrats are afraid of pitting Latinos
against labor unions (new flash for Navarrette: Labor unions loudly
support comprehensive reform; indeed, one of the largest unions, SEIU,
counts Latinos as a significant bloc of their base).

But the Big Lie all this is intended to promote is the notion that
it's not Republican nativists -- you know, the folks who would rather
die than allow anything remotely like Navarrette's own "common sense"
proposal to craft a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants
already here (not to mention for new arrivals as well), which are
immediately and loudly denounced as "amnesty" -- who are preventing
immigration reform from moving forward. Nope. It's venal conniving
Democrats.

Certainly it's true that there are parts of comprehensive reform that
are hard for progressive reformers to swallow as well (including, most
likely, penalties and fines for immigrants who are found to have
violated existing law), especially for labor unions, many of whose
members may also view the new arrivals with some anxiety. But that is
not a serious obstacle, nor are those currents strong enough to inspire
the kind of nefarious "keep them on the plantation" conspiracy that
Navarrette has fabricated here.

What's most self-evident, though, is that Ruben Navarrette has not single shred of credibility remaining.

Sara Robinson has worked as an editor or columnist for several national magazines, on beats as varied as sports, travel, and the Olympics; and has contributed to over 80 computer games for EA, Lucasfilm, Disney, and many other companies. A native of California's High Sierra, she spent 20 years in Silicon Valley before moving to Vancouver, BC in 2004. She currently is pursuing an MS in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. You can reach her at srobinson@enginesofmischief.com.